The annual HungerCount report, released Tuesday, found 852,137 Canadians required monthly assistance from their local food bank in 2014-2015, an increase of nearly 1.3 per cent nationally. It’s the second year in a row food bank usage has risen in Canada.

More than one third of those helped were children, the report said.

Much of that increase stems from higher usage in Alberta – unemployment jumped 1o per cent between March 2014 and March 2015. The job losses meant “three-quarters of food banks in this province reported an increase in use,” the report reads. Food Banks Canada is a national charitable organization that supports local food banks and agencies that address food insecurity.

“The thing that we have to remember is that with the down turn in the oil and gas sector, we know 35,000 jobs [in oil and gas] were lost,” Katharine Schmidt, executive director of Food Banks Canada said Tuesday. “But there’s a lot of ripple effect from that kind of economic downturn and change in people’s economic ability.”

“We know that that has a fairly far reaching affect in communities, absolutely,” she explained.

An October Statistics Canada employment survey found Alberta lost 63, 500 jobs in the first eight months of the year — the highest number of losses since the 2008 global economic crisis. Food bank usage in Western Canada, Schmidt said, has jumped 50 per cent since 2008.

The increase in food bank usage, the HungerCount report notes, was felt in both rural and urban communities, with 75 per cent of rural food banks in Saskatchewan and Alberta reporting usage increases.

Nationally, the number of people using food banks in rural communities jumped 6.3 per cent – with 57 per cent of food banks reporting increases. Those increase, Schmidt said, are the result of more seniors living in rural communities and falling energy prices.

Dependency on food banks, the report noted, also jumped in British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba, and the three Territories.

While rising unemployment and slumping oil prices are largely to blame for the rising food insecurity in Alberta, Food Banks Canada said a lack of affordable housing, and a “broken” welfare system add to the problem.

“These figures offer stark evidence…that government-managed income benefits are inadequate to support individuals and families who have fallen on hard times,” the report reads, adding “a job does not always guarantee food security.”

Forty-four per cent of households helped by food banks each month are dual-parent families with children, the report said, while another 46 per cent are single-parent households.

While 46 per cent of those assisted depend on provincial welfare programs, 16 per cent of those helped earn most of their income through work.

“Millions of Canadians are trying to make ends meet with incomes that fall far below what is necessary to afford even the most basic cost of living,” the report reads, while the current welfare system “seems beyond repair.”

“Individuals and families must be at the brink of destitution to qualify for the program,” the report notes, adding “it can be very difficult to climb out of poverty once one is in the system.”

With usage continuing to rise, Food Banks Canada is asking federal and provincial governments amend the welfare system to one that operates on a “basic income” model. More investments in affordable housing are also needed, the report notes – echoing a call from municipal leaders.

Improved programming for Canadians with low literacy levels should also be reinstated and adopted, Food Banks Canada said, while in the North emphasis should be placed on more traditional foods to “reduce the cost of store-bought foods in northern communities.”

Some 250 million pounds of food is donated to Canadian food banks annually.